Kirkland Girl Drowns In Oregon Hot Tub -- Hair Becomes Tangled In Tub's Intake Grate

-- KIRKLAND

A 10-year-old Kirkland girl drowned at a Central Oregon resort Wednesday night when her hair became entangled in the suction intake of the hotel hot tub and trapped her underwater, according to the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office.

Kandice L. Nyborg was discovered by an older sister at 7:55 p.m. Wednesday. She had apparently been underwater for several minutes. The girl's parents, Warren and Della Nyborg, gave her CPR until paramedics from the Sunriver Fire Department arrived, but Kandice was dead on arrival at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

A spokesman for the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office in Bend said the incident happened at a resort in the Central Oregon town of Sunriver. He said the hotel room had a large hot tub in its upstairs bathroom; the water is circulated by jets and a drain pipe sucks in the water so it can be circulated out.

According to the sheriff's officer, the intake valve is covered by a grate with three bars across it designed to prevent people from putting their hands into the valve. But when the girl put her head under water, the valve sucked the hair into the grate and wove it through the bars so she couldn't pull her head out of the water.

"Apparently she put her head under water to wash her hair or something," the spokesman said, "and it was pulled into the slots and then tied in a knot."

The Nyborg family was in Sunriver on a vacation.

Green Funeral Home in Kirkland is handling the funeral arrangements, which are still pending. Funeral director Ron Larson, who is also a neighbor of the Nyborgs, said the family was driving to Kirkland from Oregon and was expected to arrive sometime last night.

Neighbors said Kandice was a fifth-grader at Juanita Elementary School in Kirkland and was active in her church, St. Paul's Lutheran, as well as Northshore Baptist. She was also a member of the Children's Choir.

Besides her parents, Kandice is survived by her sister, Shalia, 14.